sitting together in Flint's
room. "She has too much humor. The more humor there is in an original
poem, for instance, the harder it is to parody, and so with people.
The grand, gloomy, and peculiar are easy enough, let them be ever so
august; but the light, delicately ironical manner is a difficult thing
to exaggerate."

"Yes," assented Flint, "the heaviness of touch necessary to caricature
spoils the effect."

"Precisely," said Brady, "and it is as difficult to take off her looks
as her manner. Her expression is too changeable to leave any
characteristic fixed in the mind. The fact is, Miss Anstice is almost
a beauty at times."

"You think so?" responded Flint, with half-closed eyes.

"Yes, I do really--in a way--not like that Madonna-type of Nora
Costello."

"No, certainly not like her."

"But still she has a style of her own."

"Oh, yes, quite so--as you say, she has a style of her own."

"You are very cool on the subject; but you should have heard a man at
the club go on about her, when he heard that we had spent our vacation
at Nepaug."

"I should scarcely think," said Flint, opening and closing his
match-box with a quick, nervous movement, "that you would have allowed
her name to come up at the club."

"Oh, hang it, Flint, that is going pretty far! I don't know that Miss
Anstice's name is too sacred to be mentioned in general society; and
as for the club,--why, if it is not made up of gentlemen, what did you
put me up for?"

It was seldom that Brady got off so much of a speech, and he felt a
little elated by seeing his friend without an answer for the moment.

"Besides," he continued, "nothing was said, except about what a
stunning girl she was. 'Handsomer than ever,' Livingston said, 'since
she came home.'"

"So the Anstices are at home?"

"Yes, and Cousin Susan is coming down next week to visit them. She
wrote me to be sure to call."

"I shall try to go before Miss Standish arrives."

Brady laughed.

"You and Cousin Susan never did hit it off very well."

"Excuse me, I think she hit me off very well; the fact is, the _femme
sole_ after fifty becomes either pious or pugnacious. Miss Standish is
both."

"You are prejudiced, as usual, and malicious, too, under the guise of
impartiality. Miss Standish is a benevolent woman, with an
irresistible bent towards doing people good even against their will."

Flint groaned assent. "Alas, yes," he muttered.

"She is a fine woman," continued Bra